#20. F1 24

We tend to include the F1 games in our annual lists of games with the best visuals pretty regularly, but that’s because the series has this department on lock. Like its predecessors, F1 24 is a beautiful game, touting stellar vehicle models with an impressive level of attention to detail, authentic lighting and weather effects lending new life to the courses, and more. Year after year, this series successfully delivers a realistic and comprehensive recreation of the real sport, and the presentation and visual fidelity play an important role in that.

#19. BODYCAM

Bodycam has a number of shortcomings in its current state that we’re hoping it will address over the course of its ongoing early access period, but one area where the game deserves all the props in the world is the way it looks. As its name suggests, its played from the first-person perspective of a bodycam on your character, and combines that with a hyper-realistic aesthetic that achieves quite a striking result. The game looks startlingly good at times, and we’re curious to see how it will continue to improve on the road to its full release.

#18. EMPIRE OF THE ANTS

Here’s another game coming from a small time that ended up surprising a great many people with its graphics. Empire of the Ants is a decidedly small-budget game, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from just looking at it. Sporting an impressive photorealistic style, the game transports players to a lush jungle where every single blade of grass, every leaf on the ground, every rock jutting out of the ground, and every single insect and critter that you lay your eyes on looks shockingly lifelike. Obviously, there are some rough edges here and there, but the overall result is nothing short of splendid.

#17. GRAY ZONE WARFARE

Indie studio Madfinger Games launched its multiplayer open world FPS Gray Zone Warfare in early access this year, and though there’s plenty of work for the developer to do to address feedback from the community, the game’s visuals are pretty much unanimously liked. There’s a good amount of rough edges that need sanding out, which is to be expected from a game of this size coming from a smaller team and still being in early access, but its open world map is also full of beautiful sights to see.

#16. DRAGON BALL: SPARKING! ZERO

Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO brought the Budokai Tenkaichi series back with a bang this year, and though the list of things in the game worthy of praise is a long one, its graphics are high on it. As you’d expect from a Dragon Ball game, Sparking! ZERO relies more on its stylized art style than on pure visual fidelity, but one way or another, the effect it achieves instantly catches the eye. In motion, the game looks particularly amazing, and watching explosive, map-destroying fights between colossally powerful characters attacking each other with everything they’ve got never loses its charm.

#15. LIKE A DRAGON: INFINITE WEALTH

The Like a Dragon series has always straddled the line between high budget photorealism and mid budget stylization perfectly, and Infinite Wealth does the same, producing yet another Dragon Engine game that you can’t quite tear your eyes away from. Given the scope of the game, it’s not surprising that not everything looks spectacular- but a lot of things to do, and everything else looks at least a minimum level of good. Overall, Infinite Wealth brings its vibrant Hawaii setting to the screen spectacularly, and easily ranks as one of the year’s better-looking games.

#14. STELLAR BLADE

Stellar Blade took many by surprise for multiple reasons, but all of it could be boiled down to it coming from a relatively unknown studio with little to no AAA console experience. For it to turn out as well as it did was a pleasant surprise, then, as was the fact that it also ended up looking as gorgeous as it did. Stellar Blade touts some of the most impressive visuals we’ve seen in a PS5 exclusive game so far (especially if you play it on a PS5 Pro), with everything from the dilapidated post-apocalyptic environments and the excellently designed monsters you fight to the Eve’s slick combat animations looking pristine.

#13. DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD

Like pretty much everything else about the game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s graphics divided opinion, with many expressing their dislike of the new, more stylized art style. And though it is clearly a break from the more grimdark style past games used, we fall in the group that ultimately really likes what the game looks like. The Veilguard is a visual stunner in more ways than one, with a bevy of environments that are brimming with vistas that will take your breath away, not to mention some of the most impressive lighting we’ve seen in a game this year.

#12. STAR WARS OUTLAWS

Calling Star Wars Outlaws an uneven experience would be a huge understatement, but when the game is at its best, it’s really, really good- and in the graphics department, it’s definitely at its best. Yes, the game has its fair share of visual glitches and technical hiccups, but little of it detracts from just how stunning it looks more often than not. No matter where you find yourself in its open world multiplanetary setting, Outlaws finds ways to take your breath away with its sights and sounds. Coming from the studio behind The Division, that doesn’t come as a huge surprise.

#11. DRAGON’S DOGMA 2

Capcom has an admirable habit of cranking out a steady stream of AAA megatons that somehow all look spectacular. Dragon’s Dogma 2 was the company’s big centerpiece in 2024, and though it doesn’t look as good as, say, the best-looking Resident Evil games out there, it does look really, really good. From the detailed environments of its sprawling open world, to the incredibly lifelike (and vastly varied) roster of monster and creatures that you take on, to, of course, how oppressively impressive the game’s darkness feels, there’s a bevy of things in Dragon’s Dogma 2 that illustrate just how visually impressive it is.

#10. INDIANA JONES AND THE GREAT CIRCLE

It may have been a while since MachineGames’ last major full-fledged AAA release, but as a studio that has always delivered visually impressive games, it did not disappoint with its return to the spotlight in the final days of this year with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a game that impresses graphically in more ways than one. It crafts its period setting with great alpomb, lets players explore a vast and varied collection of beautiful and highly detailed locations, and of course, does it all while capturing that classic Indiana Jones aesthetic. It absolutely knocks the ball out of the park in this department.

#9. SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a disastrous game- there’s just no two ways about it. But even the most disastrous games tend to have at least some redeeming qualities, and so, too, did Suicide Squad. Chief among the few was how good it looked, an area where Rocksteady Studios as a developer has never disappointed in the past. The game obviously has crippling issues that make it an absolute drag to play even at the best of times, but visually, there’s a lot to be impressed with here, especially if it’s the game’s impressive cinematics you’re talking about.

#8. TEKKEN 8

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call Tekken 8 one of the best-looking fighting games ever made. Coming earlier this year as one of the biggest current-gen exclusive Unreal Engine 5 games so far, Bandai Namco’s acclaimed fighter was promising to be absolutely astounding to look at in the lead up to release, and it unquestionably lived up to that promise. From the stages to the character models to the often explosive effects we see on the screen, Tekken 8 has no shortage of tricks up its sleeve to make you stop in your tracks and marvel at its beauty.

#7. WARHAMMER 40,000: SPACE MARINE 2

Space Marine 2 is without a doubt one of the most technically impressive games we’ve played in a long, long time. For starters, it looks excellent, with gorgeously detailed environments, well-crafted character models, and excellent enemy designs. But of course, what’s most impressive about it are the many sequences and moments where you find yourself facing overwhelmingly massive hordes of enemies, when literally hundreds upon hundreds of foes are on-screen together, all barreling in your direction while you stomp around and mow them down. The fact that the game accomplishes all of that without any significant issues with its performance just makes it that much more impressive. It’s truly something of a miracle.

#6. BLACK MYTH: WUKONG

For about four years prior to its launch, every time we saw more of Black Myth: Wukong, one thing that stood out above everything else was just how stunning it looked- something that stood out that much more given the fact that the game was coming from a lesser-known Chinese studio with a nonexistent AAA track record. When it launched in August, Black Myth was thankfully exactly as gorgeous as it was touted to be. Varied environments, spectacularly designed bosses, and some of the most breathtaking vistas we’ve seen in games all year all come together in what’s easily one of the best-looking games of this generation (even if it does have the odd technical rough edge).

#5. FINAL FANTASY 7 REBIRTH

There’s no end to the things about Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth that we can praise endlessly, and its visual splendour is high on that list. Obviously, we can’t ignore the fact that the game does suffer from some graphical inconsistencies, especially when played on Performance Mode. Even at its worst, however, Rebirth has a knack of looking impressive, while at its best, it’s drop-dead gorgeous. Its staggeringly large world is crawling with beautiful sights that are begging to be sought out and taken in, while on a PS5 Pro in particular, it looks absolutely stunning with little to no caveats.

#4. SILENT HILL 2

Silent Hill 2’s remake sparked a good deal of skepticism from many, which, given developer Bloober Team’s spotty track record up to that point, was fair to understand, but the one area where even the game’s biggest skeptics knew it wouldn’t disappoint was its graphics. That’s a department that always shines in Bloober games, and sure enough, Silent Hill 2 is an absolute looker. The decrepit eponymous town and the horrors that it hide are brought to life in spectacular and terrifying fashion, while Silent Hill 2’s familiar cast of characters are given new life by the stellar fidelity that the game now boasts. And yes, the fog looks amazing.

#3. MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR 2024

Microsoft Flight Simulator took our collective breath away when it launched in 2020, and still stands as one of the best-looking games around on any platform. Appropriately enough, Microsoft Flight SImulator 2024 turned out to be somehow even more visually impressive. Marginally gains are definitely setting in, which is unavoidable, but at the end of the day, even the most jaded person can’t help but be floored by the stunning level of detail, authenticity, and photorealism with which Flight Sim 2024 brings its grand vision to life.

#2. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: HEART OF CHORNOBYL

Much like its predecessors, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a little rough around the edges, and with its slate of technical issues and its deliberately punishing nature, it’s definitely not a game for everyone. But boy oh boy is it a visual delight. GSC Game World’s open world shooter is easily among the best-looking games to have been released this generation. It boasts a staggering level of detail and fidelity across a huge world with impressive consistency. The game deserves all the praise in the world for the lengths to which it goes to make its world feel authentic, and to immerse players in its deadly setting.

#1. SENUA’S SAGA: HELLBLADE 2

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 certainly has its critics, and there are many who argue that it doesn’t hold a candle to its predecessor in a lot of ways that really matter. One area where it unquestionably makes huge strides, however, is the graphics department. Ninja Theory as a studio has always prided itself on pushing the envelope with what it does on the technological side of things, and this time, with the financial backing of Microsoft, the developer really went all out. Whether it’s its dark and grimy setting or the incredibly lifelike characters and their facial movements, the stellar lighting and the rich atmosphere it helps create or the spectacular animations that allow even gameplay moments to look like gorgeously handcrafted cinematics- from its first moment to its last, Hellblade 2 remains a visual delight.

You play the role of an ant known only as 103,683, and over the course of the game’s surprisingly meaty and compelling campaign, you are going to be saving the life of the ants in your colony, as well as other colonies, by making alliances with other local bugs and critters.

"Simple sounds of the outside that we possibly take for granted – including the sound of the grass rustling in the wind, the sound of water flowing, the birds chirping, the cries of animals – all of that is in this game with a shockingly high degree of authenticity."

Mechanically, the game is best compared to Nintendo’s Pikmin series, which Empire of the Ants shares a surprising amount with. A lot of this is simply because both are real-time strategy titles following small creatures in nature collecting resources and defending their bases – the similarities are immediate and obvious. It’s a flattering comparison too, because the Pikmin games remain arguably the only ones that have convincingly translated the RTS genre to consoles, and Empire of the Ants ends up working similarly well.

If you are a veteran of the RTS genre, you surely know of the “console problem”. Real time strategy games work very well on a PC with a keyboard and mouse setup, which not only allows rapid control of multiple characters across multiple objectives strewn throughout the screen, but also lets player expedite complex actions by assigning them to pretty much every possible key on the keyboard. Basically, translating even basic RTS controls to a console game pad ends up slowing the game down and making it tedious or fiddly.

A thoughtfully laid out interface and sensibly mapped control bindings allow even players on PS5 (the console we played on for this review) to start commanding literal legions of ants to attack, defend, and scavenge across multiple bases and objectives on the map.

"What ends up being deceptively great is the part of the game where you’re not really engaging in any battles or base building, but just exploring the world or the hubs by yourself."

The game is possibly aware of the fact that it may well end up being the first game in this genre for many players, because it comes with a pretty comprehensive tutorial that walks players through the basics of not just the game’s controls and interface, but also real time strategy basics, including setting up bases, developing them, collecting resources, and fighting (and winning) large scale battles. It starts players out with fairly basic missions, but over time the objectives become more hectic, and definitely challenge your understanding and mastery of the game’s mechanics.

The real-time strategy side of the game is honestly surprisingly great. The various scenarios in the single player campaign keep things varied and interesting, supplementing the intriguing story with compelling gameplay as well, the game ends up layering more mechanics and systems over time to give players even more to manage  (such as weather), players can research and unlock new powers to assist their legions in battle, and the inclusion of a fairly full-featured online multiplayer suite, including leaderboards, can certainly add longevity to the game beyond its campaign for those who end up jiving with the game’s mechanics.

What ends up being deceptively great is the part of the game where you’re not really engaging in any battles or base building, but just exploring the world or the hubs by yourself. There’s something very zen and almost meditative about just going across maps, finding and cataloging points of interest, and just climbing up and down pretty much every surface the game allows for to get a closer, or more unusual, look at things. It helps that the game looks really, really good. Embracing a photorealistic aesthetic, the thrill of seeing a familiar object – like a pinecone, or an old tire – blown up to being dozens of times bigger than how we see them in real life from a scale and from angles that we usually don’t get, never really grows old.

"There are other times when the camera, unable to keep up with the player character still, ends up zooming uncomfortably close to some texture or surface, exposing the seams or shortcomings in the rendering techniques and adding unnecessary blemishes to how immaculate the game’s aesthetic otherwise is."

It is, however, here that a lot of problems also rear their head. The photorealistic aesthetic is amazing and leads to many moments of serendipitous beauty and gorgeous views. However, it can also contribute to readability and legibility issues, with it becoming surprisingly easy to lose track of your character on screen against the earthy or wooden surfaces, or against clusters of other ants and bugs. An option to highlight or outline the main character so you can’t lose track of them would have been greatly appreciated. Bafflingly, the game does include such an option in the settings menu, but it only works for objectives on the map, or NPCs you are interacting with. Hopefully this is something they can add in via an update, if only to avoid the few seconds of confusion or frustration that this issue can often lead to.

Another problem is that neither the game’s camera, nor the game’s controls, can really keep up with the total 360º freedom of movement you have. It is far too common for you to rapidly be going up a steep or curved surface, and for the camera to completely fail to follow along; or, if it does manage to follow along, for the controls to not adjust relative to the camera, and for you to end up literally going around in circles for a bit before you reorient yourself. Or, even if none of that happens, for the main character to end up latching on to a twig or step or leaf and then just end up walking on or around it without getting off it, before you realize this has happened a second or two later. None of these are big problems, to be clear. They’re minute micro-aggravations, if even that, and are largely the product of the game’s immense ambition. But they do disrupt the player, and they do get in the way.

There are other times when the camera, unable to keep up with the player character still, ends up zooming uncomfortably close to some texture or surface, exposing the seams or shortcomings in the rendering techniques and adding unnecessary blemishes to how immaculate the game’s aesthetic otherwise is. From low resolution textures to very sharp edges on some foliage, from flickering shadows to minor pop-in. These issues barely register and are worth noting more to reinforce just how incredibly good the rest of the game looks – but again, players who are obsessed with the visual fidelity of the games they play may want to know about about this ahead of time.

"There are few games that commit to their central conceit and framing as much as Empire of the Ants does."

On the whole, however, given the small team and obviously lower budget this game had compared to most contemporary major releases, it is surprising just how high budget the presentation is. The game obviously looks great, but the sound design shouldn’t be overlooked either.

Simple sounds of the outside that we possibly take for granted – including the sound of the grass rustling in the wind, the sound of water flowing, the birds chirping, the cries of animals – all of that is in this game with a shockingly high degree of authenticity. The impressive part is not only the depth of texture to these sounds, but also how appropriate they feel for the scale. You are, after all, a literal mite-sized ant. Not only will all of this sound louder to you, but also different. Throw in a surprisingly ambient soundtrack and the game sounds almost as good as it looks – which is some incredibly high praise.

A lot of the problems the game runs into arise directly from that commitment, but that same commitment allows Empire of the Ants to deliver an extremely unique experience that stands out not just because of the premise, but also because of how well it executes on it. Those fumbles and foibles are few, and largely, Empire of the Ants is firing on all cylinders to deliver a uniquely compelling game that fans of real time strategy games, or simply players looking for relaxing and meditative gameplay or a surprisingly thought-provoking story, will appreciate.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

One of them is Renaud Charpentier, game director on Empire of the Ants at Tower Five. Speaking in a recent interview with GamingBolt, when asked if the upcoming real-time strategy title is going to get a Switch 2 version down the line, Charpentier said that though Tower Five is currently unaware of the console’s specs, the dev team would be “very happy” to potentially see the game on the platform, especially since, as he says, the game’s Steam Deck version proves it works very well on a portable device.

“We are waiting to see the final specs of the Switch successor and would be very happy to be able to propose Empire on it,” Charpentier told GamingBolt. “What is for sure is that the Switch format and controls will suit Empire very well, as the experience on a Steam Deck proves; now it is mostly a question of visual fidelity.”

In the same interview, Charpentier also confirmed the game’s performance and frame rate targets across all platforms. Read more on that through here.

Empire of the Ants is due out on November 7 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

As per Charpentier, on both PS5 and Xbox Series X, Empire of the Ants will run at “a stable 30 FPS”, while targeting a native resolution between 1400p and 1600; that will then be upscaled to 4K. On Xbox Series S, meanwhile, the game will run at 1080p and 30 FPS (upscaled from a native 972p), while on the PS5 PRo, it will run at 60 FPS and 4K (upscaled from a native 1440p target resolution).

Speaking specifically about the Xbox Series S, Charpentier stated that though the weaker console would have been capable of running the game at 60 FPS, Tower Five decided to limit it to 30 FPS in order to reach the desired render quality.

“The S is close to the X in many aspects, apart from raw GPU power and RAM space,” Charpentier said. “RAM space potentially limits texture quality but not framerate, so it is really a question of native resolution. On the S the strategy is obviously to lower the base render resolution and then to ask the upscaler to interpolate more. Reaching 1440p in 60 FPS is possible but it depends how much trade off you are willing to make on individual pixel quality. For us, 30 FPS was the limit on this gen to reach the render quality we wanted, but other games can have different priorities.”

In the same interview, Charpentier also stated that Tower Five would love to put Empire of the Ants on the unannounced Switch 2, depending on what the console’s specs turn out to be. Read more on that through here.

Empire of the Ants will release for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on November 7.

"The game starts at the first page of the first novel with Bel-o-kan waking up from winter and it ends a few weeks after the end of the original story as Autumn fades back into the next winter. So story wise it is a very faithful adaptation and we made sure of it working with the author from day one."

I imagine one of the games’ biggest draws will be playing in microscopic environments that have been recontextualized as these large battlefields. What can you tell us about how you approached designing these environments and effectively capturing that juxtaposition?

We treated all our environments as huge epic battlefields or intricate jungles to explore and get lost in. The objects are all photographically realistic, some have been scanned in the actual Forest de Fontainebleau, near Paris. But the trick is the scale of course, the scale of 103, the ant you play all along the game, and it is a 1 centimeter war machine of chitin and pheromones. Adapting the camera to that, the sound design, the controls, you get to feel that this small deadwood branch is in fact a giant arch bridge over a raging river; out of the microscopic, you evoke the gigantic and the contrast is pretty strong.

How many different wildlife species will players be able to encounter? How crucial will they be to strategies for ensuring the survival of your ant colony?

Without spoiling the explorations, you will discover dozens of them, some crawling, some running, some flying… But the most important ones are those composing your armies and they go far beyond ants. From legions of small aphids to huge elephants that are in fact snails, many other insects will fight for you or against you, including some exotic (and ecologically invading) species like the Asian hornets.

Empire of the Ants’ story will supposedly follow the flow of seasons, which is going to have an impact on the gameplay as well. Can you elaborate on what that will entail? Similarly, how will the day/night cycle affect gameplay?

Insects and especially ants are extremely influenced in their behaviors by the climatic conditions they operate in. Temperature for example directly dictates their state of activity: too cold and they go to rest, even colder and they enter hibernation. We wanted to embrace that fully at a gameplay level so we considered three separated climatic characteristics: luminosity, temperature, and humidity. They each directly influence the simulation. Luminosity influences your economy, temperature influences your legions and humidity influences your pheromones, the “powers” you can use on the battlefield to influence your legions. Night and day as cycles didn’t really fit with our heroes: most insects are either active during the day or more rarely, during the night. So instead of a full cycle which would not have made much sense, or forced to interrupt battles during the night, we went for specific missions set during the night or in extreme light conditions. Including missions that are not during the night or the day as they are fully underground where no daylight is ever present.

"We treated all our environments as huge epic battlefields or intricate jungles to explore and get lost in."

How will Empire of the Ants’ scalable difficulty work? Will the game also feature fixed difficulty options for those who want them?

We treated the difficulty question another way: by allowing a non linear path through the game. In each hub, which are actually ant colonies, you have the choice of several missions to progress the situation and those missions are of very different types and difficulty. So you can progress by playing the ones you like or find right for you in terms of challenge and bypass the others. So it is the player which adapts his path through the story according to its skills and tastes rather than having a rather abstract choice of difficulty at the start of the game.

Empire of the Ants is touting photorealistic visuals, courtesy of Unreal Engine 5. How much of a factor was the engine in being able to achieve the game’s visual ambitions?

Unreal 5 was instrumental in reaching the visual look we were aiming for from the start. In fact, we experimented with a very early version of Unreal 5 to prototype the documentary look we were gunning for. So the new techs the engine offered, like Lumen, Nanite shaped the way we produced our graphics and allowed us to reach what we wanted with a fairly minimal art team. In the process, with our publisher, we took the decision to focus on the PS5 gen of hardware and not support the previous generation, that allowed us to make technical choices which are not backward compatible but allowed us to effectively reach the look and feel we wanted.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the story campaign be?

It really depends on your skill level and which missions you decide to play to progress forward as you always have the choice on that. Probably something around 20 hours. Maybe 15 if you really rush through it, probably above 30 if you take the time to explore and search for the many secrets this world has hidden to the hurried eyes.

What can you tell us about Empire of the Ants’ multiplayer offerings? 

We wanted to offer a focused and competitive multiplayer experience; so we went for 3 game modes, 2 of them through competitive ladders and one as a private games you can set exactly as you want. The competitive modes are 1 versus 1 and 3 FFA, so indeed, 1 vs 1 vs 1. There you enter a global, cross platform matchmaking which will match you against an opponent close to your ranking. The private game mode allows you to create your own server and invite friends to play in it by sharing a code across any platforms. In this mode you can choose the map, the climatic conditions and even to play against an AI, choosing its personality and level of intelligence. At the end of every multiplayer game you have the possibility to watch a complete replay of what happened: legion movements, power used, evolution of each player’s economy over time.

"We are waiting to see the final specs of the Switch successor and would be very happy to be able to propose Empire on it."

Given the game’s technical ambitions, I imagine a Switch port is unlikely, but could we perhaps see the game release for the Switch’s successor down the line?

We are waiting to see the final specs of the Switch successor and would be very happy to be able to propose Empire on it. What is for sure is that the switch format and controls will suit Empire very well, as the experience on a Steam deck proves; now it is mostly a question of visual fidelity.

Given that you have experience working with all the current-gen consoles, I was hoping to pick your brain on some of the differences between them. For instance, where their GPUs are concerned, the PS5 clocks in at 10.28 teraflops, behind the Xbox Series X’s 12 teraflops. In real terms, however, how much of an impact does that difference have during development?

To be honest, not much, the PS5 and Series X versions render with the exact same graphical parameters and both of them in very stable 30 FPS. The challenge was more to get the best visual parity possible on the Series S which is noticeably less capable, especially in terms of GPU. But here Unreal tech helped us a lot and we are pretty happy with the final result. We mostly traded on native rendering resolution and the upscaler does a great job behind the scene.

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s raw bandwidth. How can developers take advantage of this, and how does this compare to the Xbox Series X’s 2.4GB/s raw bandwidth?

Again, not a massive practical difference in the end, loading times are extremely short on both, counting in just a few seconds and the virtual texturing works very well on both. Having these consoles with fast MVMe disks was the real game changer for a game like Empire, it means your mass storage disk is almost a slow, but huge, chunk of additional RAM where you can read massive amounts of data with almost zero seek time. Compared to the hard drives found in the previous generation it is night and day and probably what changes the experience the most.

Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X boast Zen 2 CPUs, but there is a difference in the processors of both consoles. The Xbox Series X features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz, whereas the PS5 features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz. Your thoughts on this difference?

Here too the difference is not big enough to noticeably impact what you can do and can’t do on each platform. Also, in this gen, many games are in fact GPU bound, not CPU bound, in many of them you have entire CPU cores that are sleeping or not doing much while most of them submerge the GPU capacities. That’s why modern engines use variable resolution to cope with the GPU overload and lowering the native rendering resolution usually doesn’t help the CPU much or at all, the game thread, the physics, the audio, the animations, all the work that the CPU typically handles doesn’t diminish when you compute less pixels in a frame.

"On both PS5 and Xbox Series X, we mostly target between 1400p and 1600p native, upscaled to 4K, and that is at a stable 30 FPS."

The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60 FPS console. Do you think it will be able to hold up for the more graphically intensive games as this generation progresses?

The S is close to the X in many aspects, apart from raw GPU power and RAM space. RAM space potentially limits texture quality but not framerate, so it is really a question of native resolution. On the S the strategy is obviously to lower the base render resolution and then to ask the upscaler to interpolate more. Reaching 1440p in 60 FPS is possible but it depends how much trade off you are willing to make on individual pixel quality. For us, 30 FPS was the limit on this gen to reach the render quality we wanted, but other games can have different priorities.

Which console, PS5 or Xbox Series X, responds better to Unreal Engine 5 in terms of performance and optimization?

Hard to tell again, probably thanks to Epic work on the engine, there are very few differences between the builds and you relatively easily get exact visual features parity. To be honest modern multiplatform games are optimized globally, at their core, with improvements which give gain on all hardware, including PCs. For us it was the huge challenge of displaying up to 15000 animated agents at the same time in 30 FPS, and the techniques we used for that are not platform dependent; it is all a question of simulation, multithreading, pre-processing and all these work exactly the same way everywhere.

What frame rate and resolution will the game target on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S?

On both PS5 and Xbox Series X, we mostly target between 1400p and 1600p native, upscaled to 4K, and that is at a stable 30 FPS.

On Xbox Series S, the native render is in 972p upscaled to 1080p, still in 30 FPS.

On the PS5 Pro, we run at 60 FPS with a native target of 1440p upscaled to 4K.

These are the stats for standard scenes, light scenes can render natively above 2K, while very heavy battle scenes will temporarily lower native resolution down to 1080p to maintain framerate.

Planet Coaster 2

It’s almost bizarre that it took this long for Frontier’s Planet Coaster to receive a sequel, especially given its success and acclaim. Planet Coaster 2 launches on November 6th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, and once again has players building and managing a theme park. The twist is the addition of water attractions and rides, including water coasters, slides, and rivers. Everything is customizable, and your creations can be shared online with other players. You can also team up with others to create a park together or explore in first person as a visitor.

Empire of the Ants

Microids’ Empire of the Ants offers a real-time strategy experience at a decidedly smaller scale. Despite this, the overarching goal of your colony remains the same – survival and strategic domination. Throughout the 20-hour campaign, you’ll opt for different unit types (including other species like Snails and Rhino Beetles), unleash abilities, manage a war economy, and more. There’s also multiplayer three-player free-for-all and 1v1 ranked play.

Mario and Luigi: Brothership

The brothers find themselves exploring the world of Concordia, composed of multiple islands with different residents, climates, and challenges.

Utilizing Shipshape Island, a ship/island hybrid, to get around, Mario and Luigi also rely on different traversal techniques for platforming when they’re not relying on timing-based Bros. Attacks and Battle Plugs to conquer enemies. Launching on November 7th for Nintendo Switch, Brothership looks to be yet another incredible addition to the Switch’s hallowed line-up.

Slitterhead

From the mind of Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama and Bokeh Game Studio comes an unorthodox action-adventure set in Kowlong. Players control Hyoki, an amnesiac entity committed to defeating the Slitterheads, monstrous beings who can mimic humans. Hyoki’s main means of fighting is possession, taking over other beings and using their blood to create weapons.

It’s also great for getting around and accessing different parts of the city (depending on the host’s identity). Overall, it’s a significant departure from Toyama’s previous works, and we’re keen to see more when it launches on November 8th for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Farming Simulator 25

After last year’s Farming Simulator 23 performed decently on phones (and horrendously on Nintendo Switch), GIANTS Software is finally releasing a full-fledged sequel for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC on November 12th. Farming Simulator 25 features over 20 new crops, more than 400 vehicles, tools from 150+ brands, and a new East Asian environment. Even more notable are the visual improvements over previous titles, from terrain deformation and dynamic weather to improved shadows.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake

The legend of Erdrick is finally coming to contemporary consoles when Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake launches on November 14th for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Nintendo Switch. Featuring the HD-2D visual style, the story sees the protagonist, child of the great Ortega, embarking on a journey to defeat Baramos, the Archfiend.

Recruiting allies with customizable appearances and vocations, players can explore the world, engage in side quests, venture into dungeons, and even rescue monsters for battling in the new Monster Arena. There’s also a new Vocation, the Monster Wrangler, and quality-of-life features, like combat orders, which make for a more approachable experience.

LEGO Horizon Adventures

Have you ever wanted to re-experience Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn in a new way? Yes, aside from the upcoming remaster. In that case, Studio Gobo’s LEGO Horizon Adventures has you covered. It carries the charm and light-hearted atmosphere that the Lego series is known for, downplaying some of Zero Dawn’s darker elements in the process.

You’ll still play as Aloy in search of her mother, solo or teaming with other characters like Varl in an action-adventure (and not a beat ’em up where you’ll collect Studs like other Lego titles). It’s an odd ask, to be sure, but LEGO Horizon Adventures could surprise us when it launches on November 14th for PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

With the breakout success of its 2020 flight sim, it was only a matter of time before Microsoft went back to the well with Flight Simulator. Developed again by Asobo Studio, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launches on November 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PC. Thus far, it looks like a staggering effort that builds upon its predecessor while completely blowing it out of the water.

A new Career System where you take tests, learn everything there is to know and then embark on different mission types, from commercial flights and rescue missions to escorting VIPs. There are new aircraft and avionics systems to master, a new flight planner with IFR charts and route planning, over 150 hand-crafted airports (alongside 40,000 procedurally generated airports); and 27 biomes that you can explore on foot. The original is one of the biggest games in scale, but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 could very well dethrone it.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

If one big console exclusive wasn’t enough for Microsoft, then perhaps S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will seal the deal. After multiple years of delays, to say nothing of the real-world challenges that GSC Game World endured, it’s finally launching on November 20th for Xbox Series X/S and PC. As Skif, players enter the Zone and pretty much have full reign if they can survive.

They’ll encounter other factions, both friendly and hostile, battle mutants, discover Artifacts, and have one too many run-ins with environment-altering Anomalies. The world is seamless, fully hand-crafted and teeming with secrets, which the developer says will necessitate over 100 hours to discover. There’s a lot of hype and expectations on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, and in just a few weeks, we’ll see if it finally delivers.

Tetris Forever

Why explore one golden year of the Tetris franchise when you could experience them all? Digital Eclipse’s Tetris Forever collects over 15 titles from the puzzle series into one collection, from recreating the very first Tetris released in 1984 to Japan-only games that are playable for the first time worldwide.

It even includes Tetris Time Warp, a brand-new title where players warp between different eras of Tetris in a single game, playable solo and with three other people. If you’re keen on history, there’s a museum with original ads and photos on top of new documentary featurettes detailing the original game’s development. Tetris Forever launches on November 12th for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Nine Sols

If the wait for Hollow Knight: Silksong has gone from depression to acceptance, Red Candle Games’ Nine Sols may provide a worthy diversion. Available earlier this year for PC, it’s coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch on November 26th.

Combining elements of platforming with hack-and-slash combat, including a robust parry system inspired by Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Nine Sols focuses on Yi, who embarks on a quest to slay the titular 9 Sols. Presenting sleek animated visuals, players learn more about Yi, the nature of New Kunlun and unlock abilities to access new areas. If you’re a fan of challenging combat or action platforms in general, it’s worth a look.

Towers of Aghasba (Early Access)

“Fantasy building with a mix of open-world exploration and restoration” describes Towers of Aghasba, which enters early access on November 19th for PS5 and PC. Inspired by films like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke, it sees players building a new city for their people while venturing into the world to cleanse a mysterious corruption.

Early access features three ecosystems and town types, more than 40 creatures, over 120 plants, and 150 recipes for decorations. You can go it alone or play with up to three other players, engaging in combat, farming, fishing or discovering ancient ruins. If its gameplay can live up to the gorgeous aesthetic, then Towers of Aghasba could end up as yet another hallmark open-world sandbox crafting title.

PREMISE

Part adventure game and part real time strategy title, the upcoming Empire of the Ants is making some intriguing promises. In the campaign, players will take control of a lone ant, 103, an ant of the warrior caste. As you might imagine, you will be tasked with helping with the management and growth of your ant colony, which will involve plenty of combat, exploration, and more. More on that in a bit.

A FAITHFUL ADAPTATION

Exactly how faithfully will Empire of the Ants stick to the source material? According to Tower Five, the game is being designed as quite a faithful adaptation of the novel. Speaking in an interview with GamingBolt, game director Renaud Charpentier also revealed that Tower Five has been working with author Bernard Werber “from day one”, and that Werber “understood very well what we were doing and we could benefit from his direct feedback all along the project, both on the narrative and the global world around the main action.”

COMBAT DETAILS

On your microscopic journey throughout Empire of the Ants, you will be partaking in a fair bit of combat as you look to expand the reach of your colony. As you’d expect from a strategy title, the different units that will be available at your disposal will be key to whatever tactics you form, with unique units bringing different strengths and benefits. Beyond that, players will have to also keep an eye on upgrading their nest and outposts, spying on enemies, balancing between different strategies, and more.

EXPLORATION AND ENVIRONMENTS

Exploration will also be an important part of the core loop in Empire of the Ants. Players will be looking to uncover secrets, forge alliances, and what have you, and will be doing so in a location that’s presented as “huge epic battlefields or intricate jungles to explore and get lost in” through the ants’ tiny lens. Speaking with GamingBolt, game director Renaud Charpentier said about the environments that players will be exploring, “The trick is the scale of 103, the ant you play all along the game, a 1 centimeter war machine of chitin and pheromones. Adapting the camera to that, the sound design, the controls, you get to feel that this small deadwood branch is in fact a giant arch bridge over a raging river. Out of the microscopic, you evoke the gigantic and the contrast is pretty strong.”

WILDLIFE

Ants will rule the roost in Empire of the Ants, as the game’s name may have given away, but the game won’t be their exclusive domain. Players will be encountering a variety of different species as they explore the forest, and many of these will be helping you and forging alliances to join your cause. Speaking on the subject, Charpentier told GamingBolt, “You will discover dozens of them, some crawling, some running, some flying… But the most important ones are those composing your armies and they go far beyond ants. From legions of small aphids to huge elephants that are in fact snails, many other insects will fight for you or against you, including some exotic (and ecologically invading) species like the Asian hornets.”

SEASONS

Empire of the Ants isn’t necessarily billing itself as the ultimate insectoid battle simulator, but it is nonetheless looking to inject authenticity into the experience in some interesting ways. For instance, the game will feature a seasons system, with changing seasons impacting different species in different ways.

Here’s how Charpentier explained Empire of the Ants’ seasons and how they will impact gameplay while speaking with GamingBolt: “We wanted to embrace that fully at a gameplay level so we considered three separated climatic characteristics: luminosity, temperature, and humidity. They each directly influence the simulation. Luminosity influences your economy, temperature influences your legions and humidity influences your pheromones, [which are] the ‘powers’ you can use on the battlefield to influence your legions.”

NO DAY/NIGHT CYCLE

Though it features different seasons, Empire of the Ants won’t feature a dynamic day and night cycle- though you can expect different missions to be set during different times of day, which in turn will have other (largely minimal) effects. What exactly should you expect on that front? Speaking with GamingBolt, game director Renaud Charpentier explained, “Night and day as cycles didn’t really fit with our heroes: most insects are either active during the day or more rarely, during the night. So instead of a full cycle which would not have made much sense, or forced to interrupt battles during the night, we went for specific missions set during the night or in extreme light conditions. Including missions that are not during the night or the day as they are fully underground where no daylight is ever present.”

DIFFICULTY

Empire of the Ants is seemingly not going to feature any difficulty options, with developer Tower Five instead adopting a scalable difficulty model. What precisely does that mean? Well, in a nutshell, players will be able to tackle the game’s objectives in non-linear fashion, which means the difficulty of the missions will scale with you, so that you’re not forced to tackle missions in any specific order prescribed by set difficulty requirements.

CAMPAIGN

The story campaign in Empire of the Ants will undoubtedly be what the bulk of players will be diving into first and foremost, but exactly how extensive can we expect the experience to be? According to Charpentier, depending on how you play, the campaign can be anywhere between 15 and 30 hours long. “It really depends on your skill level and which missions you decide to play to progress forward as you always have the choice on that,” the game director told GamingBolt. “Probably something around 20 hours. Maybe 15 if you really rush through it, probably above 30 if you take the time to explore and search for the many secrets this world has hidden to the hurried eyes.”

MULTIPLAYER

Though the campaign is clearly going to be the main attraction in Empire of the Ants, the strategy title will also offer multiplayer modes, as you would expect. Three modes will be available in total, with two being competitive modes in the form of 1v1 and 1v1v1. The third option will be for private matches, where players will be able to customize rules in a variety of ways. Meanwhile, cross-platform multiplayer will also be supported.

VISUALS

Something that Tower Five and Microids have stressed repeatedly with Empire of the Ants is the game’s much touted photorealistic visual and technical ambitions. As per the developer, Unreal Engine 5 – which is what the game is built on – had a big role to play in its graphical strengths. “Unreal 5 was instrumental in reaching the visual look we were aiming for from the start,” Chapentier told us in an interview. “In fact, we experimented with a very early version of Unreal 5 to prototype the documentary look we were gunning for. So the new techs the engine offered, like Lumen, Nanite shaped the way we produced our graphics and allowed us to reach what we wanted with a fairly minimal art team.”

Interestingly, the decision was also made to not develop the game as a cross-gen title so that it could achieve its technical ambitions. “In the process, with our publisher, we took the decision to focus on the PS5 gen of hardware and not support the previous generation, that allowed us to make technical choices which are not backward compatible but allowed us to effectively reach the look and feel we wanted.,” the director said to GamingBolt.

PC REQUIREMENTS

With all the talk of Empire of the Ants’ photorealistic visuals, what kind of a rig exactly are you going to need to play the game on PC? Well, at least on the lower settings, things aren’t too crazy. On minimum settings, you’ll need either an i5 9400 or a Ryzen 5 2600, along with either a GeForce GTX 1060 or a Radeon RX 580, and 8 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, you’ll need either an i5 9600 or a Ryzen 5 3600, along with either a GeForce RTX 3080 or a Radeon RX 6800, and 16 GB of RAM. On either setting, you’ll also need an SSD and around 70 GB of free storage space.

Alongside a digital release, console players can pick up the physical Retail Edition. It includes a reversible sleeve with some striking artwork on the inner portion. A new gameplay trailer is also available, showcasing the different enemies and environments players will explore, including some of the threats encountered.

Empire of the Ants is a third-person title from the perspective of a single ant who must guide their colony to a new home. However, it’s a strategy game at heart, as you capture territories, progress through changing seasons (which introduce new mechanics) and command your fellow ants to absolutely wreck a mantis. Multiplayer is also available, though specific modes have yet to be outlined.

The game makes use of a third-person view that offers a unique perspective on the its primary setting of the heart of a French forest. Players will be able to make use of unique abilities in order to aid their exploration, as well as to help them out in fights.

Developed using Unreal Engine 5, Empire of the Ants also boasts of photo-realistic visuals to bring the French forest to life, letting players observe creatures and even other ants and their colonies in their natural habitats.

Along the way, players will be able to continue through the game’s campaign, which is seemingly based on the rhythm of various seasons passing by, each season bringing changes to the environment and even gameplay mechanics.